Oregon Urgently SHUTS DOWN Small Farms En Masse, “TO PROTECT THE PEOPLE" - "Does Not Matter the Size of the Operation" - Yanasa TV

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0:00 it it seems like these types of stories are starting to become so prolific you
could almost do a video a day on this stuff but today I wanted to talk about the state of Oregon and I know that some of you are probably thinking you know
0:14
this is Oregon this is what happens in
0:16
Oregon but hear me out on this
0:19
because a lot of these things kind of
0:22
start in some of these states and then
0:23
you start seeing them spread to other
0:26
states okay so the state of Oregon has
0:29
affected ly shut down small farms and
0:34
Market Gardens on a large scale and
0:37
they're actually sending out cease and
0:39
deess letters to farms and they're using
0:42
satellite technology to find their
0:44
victims and then send them these letters
0:46
and say you can't operate and they're
0:49
doing it in the name of water
0:51
conservation groundwater protection so
0:53
there are two different laws that
0:54
they're using to this effect and I
0:57
wanted to just mention those laws with
1:00
with a couple of these cases so that you
1:02
get an idea of of how they're being
1:04
interpreted and utilized to shut down
1:07
small farms okay so I found a court case
1:10
that was filed in January of this year
1:13
um and it basically uh in the National
1:17
Review there was an article that said
1:18
Oregon's government and dairy industry
1:20
join forces against small farmers um and
1:23
and what they're doing in the state of
1:26
Oregon is they've
1:28
redefined what a cafo is is and this
1:30
doesn't just apply to small Dairy
1:33
Farmers this applies to people who have
1:35
chicken houses who have uh goat farms
1:39
basically anybody who has a barn or a
1:42
facility that has a gravel or concrete
1:46
floor I will actually read to you what
1:49
the definition is and uh and then we'll
1:52
talk about how it's been impacting some
1:54
people according to Oregon a a CAO or a
1:59
confined animal feeding operation
2:03
cafo the state of organ defines cafos as
2:08
the concentrated feeding or holding of
2:11
animals or poultry including but not
2:14
limited to a horse cattle sheep or swine
2:16
feeding areas Dairy confinement areas
2:20
and poultry and egg production
2:21
facilities where the surface has been
2:24
prepared with concrete rock or fibrous
2:27
material to support animals and wet
2:30
weather that is what they Define as a
2:32
cffo and so what's happening in Oregon
2:35
and why the small dairies have filed a
2:37
lawsuit against the state and really I
2:40
think uh from the list that you that you
2:42
just heard me read anybody who's
2:44
producing eggs it doesn't matter the
2:47
size of the operation you could have two
2:50
milking cows okay so here's an an
2:52
example for you Sarah King who owns
2:55
godspeed Hollow Farm in Newberg Oregon
2:58
has uh a pickup station that's just 100
3:02
ft in length she has an 11 acre property
3:05
and keeps things pretty simple she has
3:08
three milking cows she's been shut down
3:11
for being called a cafo but because she
3:15
has that milking stand the state of
3:17
Oregon said you are a cafo and because
3:20
you are considered a cafo re re require
3:23
you to put in this infrastructure
3:25
Improvement which would cost her
3:27
$100,000 she could never do with a
3:28
couple cows um we we're requiring this
3:32
massive infrastructure upgrade for you
3:34
to continue to operate your facilities
3:36
to protect our ground water from your
3:38
two cows standing on a milking stand um
3:41
and this is a problem that I see the way
3:43
that they have redefined cafos is is
3:46
going to impact nearly everybody I mean
3:50
even on our farm we we everybody's out
3:53
to pasture we don't have animals that
3:55
are necessarily contained in one area
3:58
but in the bottom of our chicken house
4:00
do we have gravel and rock yes we do um
4:04
in in certain areas where you know we
4:07
pull animals in we have gravel and rock
4:10
it just makes a lot of sense sometimes
4:12
to have clean spaces sheep for example
4:15
uh you don't want to Shear a sheep just
4:17
out in a field somewhere I mean you need
4:19
a clean surface to do that or you're
4:21
going to end up with a bunch of stuff in
4:22
your wool so this law is being enforced
4:26
in the state of Oregon it has already
4:29
shut down Some Farms there's an
4:31
injunction on the on the the definition
4:34
of the law until it can be heard in
4:36
court since um the League of Justice or
4:39
whoever they are have filed a court case
4:42
uh in January to try and stop it so
4:44
currently small Dairy Farmers um and you
4:48
know the way that I first read the
4:50
article you would think that they were
4:52
going after you know raw milk that
4:54
always seems to be the case with with a
4:56
lot of these things but this is actually
4:58
going after anybody egg producers
5:01
anybody who has chickens that go up in a
5:04
in a chicken house at night that may
5:05
have a concrete floor that's easy for
5:08
cleaning or whatever it is and you have
5:11
to go through a permitting process um
5:14
and and a lot of what they're requiring
5:17
is just simply too much for the small
5:18
farmer so that's rule number one that's
5:21
been impacting small farmers and is
5:24
actually a part of an active court case
5:26
right now um the second rule is one that
5:30
I found fairly interesting so in the
5:32
state of Oregon if you are using water
5:36
even groundwater the only water that you
5:38
can legally Harvest and use without a
5:41
permit is actually rainwater okay but
5:44
they consider all water in the ground a
5:47
resource of the public the people even
5:49
if you have a private well on your
5:51
property that belongs to the people of
5:53
Oregon not you so um what they've said
5:56
is basically if you're using it for
5:58
commercial purpose purposes you have to
6:01
have a permit now there's an exemption
6:02
to this Rule and this is a rule that
6:04
went into place back in 2021 and then it
6:08
has slowly rolled out to the point where
6:11
Market gardeners with a half acre of
6:13
land are now receiving cease and deiss
6:16
ORD saying you can't water your Gardens
6:18
figure out another way to do it um so
6:21
under this this rule there's an
6:24
exemption for commercial and Industrial
6:26
use for up to 5,000 gallons per day okay
6:30
so these gardeners with a half acre of
6:33
land are probably using a th000 gallons
6:36
of water a day not even a th gallons of
6:39
water a day you would think that they're
6:41
saying you're a commercial business
6:43
because if you are growing food for
6:46
yourself they still allow you to utilize
6:49
you know water from your well to grow a
6:52
half acre Garden up to a half acre
6:54
Garden there's there's a limit on that
6:56
um but this is a the story I read was
7:00
about a a Halfacre Market Garden where
7:03
the lady has been growing food and
7:05
selling it to neighbors it's been her
7:07
primary income source and um they shut
7:10
her down Christina Del Campo um has just
7:15
over a half acre she grows blueberries
7:19
local vegetables things like that her
7:21
Farm is called Oak song farm near Eugene
7:25
she's operated there for 7 years and she
7:28
recently received received a letter from
7:30
the regional office of the Oregon Water
7:33
Resources Department it was a
7:35
notification that the farm couldn't
7:36
irrigate its commercial crops without a
7:40
water right according to Mike McCord the
7:42
northwest region manager water is a
7:45
finite resources the system of
7:48
appropriation has been in place since
7:49
1909 in Oregon it allows us to better
7:52
manage the resource by having a
7:53
permitting system so this um exemption
7:56
for 5,000 gallons a day which is for
8:00
commercial onetime or single operation
8:03
commercial and Industrial use so if you
8:05
had multiple locations you couldn't use
8:08
the exemption multiple times
8:10
right they shut her down because
8:13
according to the organ Water Resources
8:18
Department the exemption for commercial
8:21
use does not include irrigation of land
8:24
now looking into the actual organ exempt
8:27
use for Wells it says nothing about out
8:29
does not include irrigation of land all
8:32
it says is that if you're a commercial
8:34
user of or industrial user you get a
8:39
single use permit of up to 5,000 gallons
8:42
per day for a $300 fee and and basically
8:45
the state of Oregon is coming in now and
8:47
they're they're putting things on
8:48
people's Wells to measure the amount of
8:50
water it's very invasive measure the
8:52
amount of water they're consuming each
8:54
day um and supposedly organs had these
8:56
rules in place since 1909 they just keep
8:58
changing them
9:00
and keep
9:01
implementing uh more things to them
9:03
anyway so they've sent out letters not
9:05
just to this one farmer but multiple
9:08
small Farms market garden farms saying
9:11
you can't water your crops anymore
9:13
because under the exemption
9:16
Clause irrigation isn't covered this is
9:19
actually a war on small farms um it's a
9:23
war on small farms I mean why would you
9:25
consider a small farmer with a couple
9:28
milk house and a milking stand in their
9:31
Barn a
9:33
cafo that typically is not what you
9:35
would think of as a cafo they're in
9:38
confinement for a short period of time
9:40
they come up to eat and get milked and
9:42
then they go um your chickens and and
9:45
and egg laying you know for example
9:47
where we have our chickens we put their
9:48
food inside the building so that it
9:51
doesn't get rained on um I mean we could
9:54
be considered a cafo under the state of
9:57
Oregon's definition and they come to us
10:00
and say you got to shut your chickens
10:02
down you can't raise any more eggs
10:04
unless you go through you know this
10:06
permitting process and put in you know
10:09
$100,000 worth of in infrastructure to
10:11
deal with the waste water that's going
10:13
to come off of that little 10x
10:16
12T chicken house this is one of the
10:19
most egregious overreaches I have seen
10:23
yet so far since I've been covering this
10:25
stuff and it's pretty obvious what's
10:28
happening here it's pretty obvious when
10:29
they interpret a law other than what the
10:32
law says to say no it doesn't include
10:34
irrigation we're shutting down all the
10:35
mark who's why is it so illegal to grow
10:38
food in Oregon and then you know to go
10:41
after small farmers who have very small
10:44
operations who aren't producing much poo
10:47
or or any type of runoff really and and
10:50
making them come up to code with the
10:53
large scale operations I I don't even
10:56
think that this is necessarily something
10:58
that's coming from the big Dairy
10:59
lobbyists although you know it wouldn't
11:02
surprise me Tom vilsack is a big Dairy
11:04
lobbyist in fact he ran the the largest
11:06
lobbying group for for Dairy Farmers and
11:10
whether you liked it or not you had to
11:11
pay into this got milk campaign and all
11:14
this stuff which paid his salary now
11:16
he's our secretary of agriculture um and
11:19
and you know it was kind of an enslaving
11:21
thing for a lot of Dairy Farmers a lot
11:23
of Dairy Farmers didn't like the fact
11:25
that they were you know stuck in these
11:26
programs but they didn't have a choice
11:28
right if they wanted to sell milk
11:29
there's so much regulation around it and
11:31
so they depended on people like Tom vsac
11:33
so it could be that the
11:36
dairy you know this group that Tom
11:38
vilsack was president of came in and
11:40
said you know what we want you to change
11:43
the definition of a small farm to be
11:45
included with CFOs because we don't like
11:48
the unfair competition it's very unfair
11:51
now because there's no way that these
11:52
small farmers can possibly do what
11:54
they're being asked to do and and run a
11:58
successful business I mean they they
11:59
can't afford that type of infrastructure
12:02
input but seeing that this is coming at
12:04
two different fronts at the same time so
12:07
the market Gardener started getting shut
12:09
down in the fall the the small Dairy
12:11
Farmers and you know the way that this
12:13
law reads it'll include eggs and chicken
12:18
and you know
12:19
Hogs Dairy goats whatever it is that you
12:23
have on your property you can get shut
12:25
down under what they're stating is is
12:27
the law and the policy in the state of
12:29
Oregon and they started going after them
12:31
at the beginning of the year that's when
12:32
you saw these lawsuits start coming in
12:34
and saying hey this is unconstitutional
12:36
because it is they're stopping people
12:38
from growing food and you know a market
12:41
Gardener or small Dairy Farmer they're
12:43
not
12:45
really competing or taking any
12:49
percentage of the the larger Farmers I
12:51
don't think that the larger Farmers
12:53
really care but these industry groups
12:55
these lobbyists these associations they
12:58
they might care
13:00
the bigger problem is that the
13:03
government the people who are elected to
13:05
the state of Oregon they're the ones
13:07
that want to enforce these policies
13:09
they're the ones that are going out and
13:11
purposefully meticulously shutting down
13:15
not just five or six Farms but we're
13:18
talking in in one mailing over 25 Market
13:21
gardeners and and they basically said
13:23
look you know here's how we do this we
13:25
we hear complaints we have you know a
13:27
hotline for Neighbors to call in and say
13:30
this person's growing a Market Garden
13:32
they're selling their vegetables to the
13:33
public and they're utilizing our Water
13:36
Resources you know tattletails is what I
13:38
call them or they use satellite imagery
13:41
and they say okay this person has a
13:43
business license they have this Farm
13:46
name for their farm and they're growing
13:48
crops on their land and they're using
13:51
their well water you know they can tell
13:54
all that from satellite images we talk
13:56
about that all the time on our farm
13:57
because it's kind of creepy you know
13:59
each year you get your satellite images
14:01
updated of your property and they start
14:03
pinpointing where new buildings are
14:05
they'll actually send people out
14:07
sometimes to assess you for more
14:08
property taxes you know at the same time
14:11
that all of this is going on the state
14:14
of
14:15
California is restricting water due to
14:18
Trout to 2500 Farmers they're at 15% of
14:24
their water supply right now um and
14:26
we've seen this happening over and over
14:28
and over again and where we're we're
14:30
seeing them
14:31
utilize water rights water protection
14:35
you know for the public good and and and
14:38
using it to shut down Farms across our
14:40
country okay if you look at the number
14:42
of farms that we've lost since 2000 it's
14:46
staggering we've gone from 2,100,000
14:49
farms and 2000 down to
14:53
1,8 like 59,000 farms at the end of last
14:58
year and this scary thing about it is
15:01
most of those losses if you look at this
15:03
on a chart are within the last four or
15:06
five years and they they they've so the
15:09
the speed at which we're losing small
15:11
farms have have increased dramatically
15:13
and what have you seen you've seen a lot
15:15
of these cases where they've gone in and
15:17
they've just shut off Farms to water
15:19
rights to an entire Valley at a time
15:22
because of drought and in this case
15:24
they're shutting it off because of trout
15:27
not drought trout te
15:29
and you know what we're seeing in Oregon
15:31
is we're seeing them take control over
15:34
people's Wells putting meters on
15:36
people's Wells shutting down small farms
15:39
shutting down small what they call cafos
15:42
but you know small dairy farms small
15:45
goat farms small chicken farms however
15:46
you want to it includes all of them
15:49
right in the name of protecting the
15:52
quality of our groundwater now I'm
15:54
somebody who's All For You Know
15:56
protecting groundwater uh I I I think
16:00
that we cause a lot of environmental
16:02
degradation I don't necessarily buy I
16:05
don't buy in at all to the the the
16:07
global warming CO2 thing but I do think
16:10
that there are things that we need to do
16:12
to protect our environment and from my
16:15
experience most of the Farms that I've
16:17
visited most of the farmers that I know
16:20
take protecting their environment and
16:21
their land very seriously I mean when
16:24
you look at these small garden market
16:26
gardeners and they're putting water out
16:29
on their crops most of them take soil
16:32
science extremely seriously and and the
16:35
better your soil science is it's
16:37
retaining a lot more of that moisture so
16:39
it's not really wasting as much water as
16:42
one would think it's not wasting as much
16:44
water as say an industrial farmer who's
16:48
tilling up you know hundreds of Acres at
16:51
a time and then putting sprayers out on
16:53
them I mean these Market gardeners don't
16:55
have to utilize that much water every
16:58
single day the way that they manage
16:59
their soil the way that they grow their
17:01
Foods it's actually probably much better
17:05
it is better a small Dairy Farmer with
17:08
cows that spend 99% of their time out in
17:11
a field or a small chicken farmer whose
17:14
chickens only go into the coupe at night
17:16
or maybe if they have some feed out they
17:18
go in there to get some feed but then
17:20
they're out frolicking and doing their
17:22
thing this could actually because it
17:24
leaves it open on the type of animal it
17:25
could actually um apply to rabbit
17:29
Farmers people who are raising rabbits
17:31
and i' I've seen rabbit setups where
17:33
they're in areas with concrete floors
17:35
that make them easy to scrape out they
17:37
put hay down for them um they make a
17:39
very comfortable environment but they
17:41
have concrete floors to scrape them out
17:43
that would be considered a cafo even if
17:45
they only have two or three rabbits in
17:47
that space you have to ask yourself at
17:50
what point in time is the government
17:53
overreaching their objective in trying
17:55
to protect the public and just use their
17:59
their their rules and their regulations
18:02
to control the
18:03
public at what point in time are they
18:06
taking away people's resources that they
18:09
should have the right to have everybody
18:11
should have the right to fresh food
18:13
everybody should have the right to farm
18:14
fresh food you know Oregon is basically
18:17
taking that right away from every Oregon
18:21
citizen by taking away the rights of the
18:23
small farmers to operate their
18:26
businesses in the name of some laws that
18:29
were originally put in place to protect
18:32
groundwater from much larger scale
18:34
operations they've just simply rewarded
18:37
things and created their own definition
18:39
about irrigation being a part of the
18:42
commercial exemption or not and in doing
18:45
so they're shutting down these small
18:47
farmers who are the the main resource
18:49
for a lot of people to get you know Farm
18:52
Fresh Direct to farm produce and meats
18:55
in the state of Oregon I would think
18:57
that this should open up
18:59
the people's eyes a little bit and and
19:01
maybe help them realize that what what
19:03
these people are doing is not protecting
19:05
them it's taking away their rights it's
19:07
taking away their access to good healthy
19:10
foods and get some of these people out
19:12
of there my fear is that other states
19:14
are going to look at these court cases
19:16
they're going to look at what the state
19:18
of Oregon has done and they're going to
19:20
start implementing it on their own and
19:21
that's something that we've seen time
19:23
and time again there's usually a state
19:25
or city that does something they they
19:28
they do something that is
19:31
obviously overreaching for any
19:34
government for any government in a free
19:36
country and then you know it's like a
19:38
test to see how it's challenged where
19:41
it's challenged and what what policies
19:43
worked so that they can proceed and then
19:46
once you get through that test phase
19:48
once you get through all the Kinks you
19:50
start seeing it spread to other states
19:53
to other similar governments anyway guys
19:55
I just wanted to draw your attention to
19:57
that I found it fairly interesting
19:59
you can look up some of these stories
20:00
yourself and if you read the Lawes
20:02
you'll see what I'm talking about um
20:04
it's it's very interesting to see how
20:06
this is going to roll out and if any of
20:09
it sticks to see what other states will
20:13
start implementing similar Clauses into
20:16
their water protection laws Etc stay
20:19
tuned until next time

SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unOXcKigSuY